Mariam has never experienced much good fortune or positive reinforcement during her life, and she has little reason to believe that her luck will ever change. The few positive moments in her life came when her father made his weekly visits, and after he refused to see her on her one visit to his home, things only became worse (her mother committed suicide, and her father forced her to accept an arranged marriage). Mariam at first believes things will work out with her husband, but his abusiveness intensifies after her failed pregnancies. Mariam realizes that her life will never be a happy one, and she simply lives each day in the hope that she will survive her husband and the bombs that fall around her neighborhood. Her only chance for change is aborted when she and Laila are caught trying to flee Afghanistan. At that point, Mariam resigns herself to a continued life of unhappiness.